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First Officer Downe Trailer is Even More Brutal Than the Comic Book

You can knock a good cop down, but you might not be able to kill him. At least that’s the lesson taught by the first official trailer for “Officer Downe,” the feature film adaptation of Joe Casey and Chris Burnham’s Image Comics graphic novel. The film centers around an LAPD officer played by Kim Coates (“Sons of Anarchy”), who comes back from the dead each time he’s killed in the line of duty to restore law and order to the ruthless streets of an alternate Los Angeles.

The film appears to stay true to the over the top action and violence of the source material, which makes all the more sense when considering that “Crank” producers Skip Williamson and Mark Neveldine were involved in this project. The trailer shares a few similarities with 2012’s “Dredd” starring Karl Urban, only Downe makes Judge Dredd look subtle by comparison.

Written by Casey, “Officer Downe” marks the feature film directorial debut of M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan of Slipknot fame. The musician previously directed a number of music videos for his band prior to taking on his first film. In an interview with CBR, Joe Casey called Crahan a great fit for the project, saying “he loved the comic book, the visuals, the blood, the sex. Creatively, the pieces all kind of fell together.”

Producer Mark Neveldine is also very confident in the project, previously making the bold claim that the film would be “better than any Marvel movie or DC movie ever made.” The trailer’s brutality also hints at the possibility for a rising trend in more R-rated comic book adaptations following the success of the R-rated and record-breaking “Deadpool” movie.

Also starring are Tyler Ross (“Zombieland,” “The Killing”) Reno Wilson (“Mike & Molly”) Bruno Gunn (“The Hunger Games”) and Lauren Velez (“Dexter”), all of whom were announced back in April.

“Officer Downe” is Man of Action Entertainment’s first attempt to compete with Marvel and DC by putting out their own feature films based on their work. Man of Action is comprised of Casey and fellow creators Joe Kelly, Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau, who as a unit are responsible for a number of hit animated series like “Ben 10” and “Generator Rex,” and will be handling next year’s “Mega Man” animated series.